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Aurora's drift

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One of the lesser-known episodes from the Shackleton era. Until the last few years the ordeal of the Aurora was either overlooked or quickly dismissed in Antarctic expedition histories, so the dogged heroism of such as Stenhouse and Hooke remained unhonoured. A few recent histories have redressed the balance somewhat. Here is the whole story of Aurora's 1,600 mile drift. Comments are welcomed from all angles, especially on the opening sentence which has caused me more trouble than all the rest. Thanks, Brianboulton (talk) 17:40, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]


  • Comment - The semi-automatic review was spot on, so those issues should be addressed ASAP. I suggest that the {{convert}} be implemented for all measurements.
    • First, this is indeed a good article, and the involved editors are to be congratulated for the wealth of sources and the great pictures.
    • It is a sub-article of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, so it should use the {{main}} hat to link to it, rather than the text wikilink.
    • I think the lead needs a full rewrite. The lead should be a summary of the article text, yet it expands on information that belongs in the article, such as a history of the ship (which has its own article!)
    • It also has a journalistic tone, rather than an encyclopedic one. The main difference between both is the use of labels rather than 'descriptors, and using some rather florid language (which seems to affect all articles in the series). Things like "ordeal" or "legendary" are to be changed.--Cerejota (talk) 22:30, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Reply: Thank you for your comments. The semi-automatic review points applicable to this article have been addressed, and the convert template has been generally adopted. Regarding your suggestion about the {{main}} hat, I have been told by User:SandyGeorgia that this is incorrect usage - see Rhinemaidens (Wagner) edit history 20 October 2008. I have substantially revised the lead, per your suggestion.
      • As to your general comments about the prose, it is sometimes difficult with narrative articles to avoid the kind of writing you describe as "florid", and I plead guilty to overstepping the mark on several occasions when preparing this article. I have been through it again, and hopefully have removed the most offending phrases. However, a balance has to be struck to avoid the article seeming merely dull and uninvolving, as might be the case if all descriptive terms were avoided. In this connection I disagree that the word "ordeal" is itself unencyclopedic; if I had said "dreadful ordeal" or some such, that would be a different matter, but there is no other word that adequately defines a long and dangerous experience. I would agree with your ukase on "legendary", but it is not, and as far as I can remember never was, in this article. Anyway, your help is much appreciated. Brianboulton (talk) 18:53, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment
  • Winter anchorage
    • You have m-dashes, rather than n-dashes, for your parenthesis. I believe the latter are preferred.
      • I didn't know this. You are probably right, so fixed.
    • Bosun Paton: is "Bosun" a title to be used attributively like that? (By which I mean "President Obama" is correct but "Prime Minister Brown" is not). Question asked in the purest ignorance. Brianboulton (talk) 18:04, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • And answered in some ignorance, too. In the sources he is referred to as "Boatswain Paton" once, otherwise sometimes as "the Bosun", but generally as Paton or James Paton, so I have amended accordingly. Brianboulton (talk) 18:04, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Blown away
    • "wireless aerials that would facilitate communication" – facilitate means make things easier: I wonder if this ought to be stronger, saying "would make communication possible…." (if that is indeed what is meant)
  • Southern Ocean phase
    • "Engineer Donnelly" – as for Bosun Paton above. (Forgive my ignorance of naval titles).
    • "He added that due to the crew's regular observations" – my English teachers always insisted that "due to" required a noun clause, and that constructions such as this one ought to be "owing to". Personally I prefer "because of", which is simpler than both.
    • "and ... knowledge" – you have sometimes put spaces either side of trios of parenthetic dots and sometimes not. I believe the former is recommended. (Someone kindly thus corrected mine in a recent FAC review)
  • Release
    • I have not amended it, because it is in a quotation, but "Lyttleton" is not correct – the town is "Lyttelton" (as in Humph – and indeed named for one of his ancestors). If Stenhouse misspelled it, so be it, but you might check.
  • Return to civilization
    • "further problems and embarrassment" – tautology?
    • "driven on to the rocks" – Fowler's Modern English Usage recommends "onto" (if you must) or preferably just "on" in this construction.
  • Aftermath
    • "seven survivors of shore party" – "of the shore party"?
    • "She left Newcastle" – you have earlier referred to a ship as "it" rather than "she" – I hesitate to express a preference, but I think you should be consistent.
    • Lloyds of London – link wanted.

These comments are all fairly pernickety, so let me add that I thought the proportions and thrust of the article beautifully judged: just the right amount of information at each point - enough to satisfy but not so much as to overwhelm. I note the above comment about tone of voice, but I read the article before I read that comment, and I can only say that the tone didn't strike me as inappropriate, and I found the article a good read as well as a very good entry for any encyclopedia. Tim riley (talk) 17:28, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for this review. The points you raise may not be major issues in themselves, but all are important in heling to improve the article. Thanks also for your general comments on he prose. Brianboulton (talk) 18:49, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: This looks very good overall. As requested, here are some initial nitpicky suggestions for improvement. I may start this and come back later to finish, but have some time now.

  • In the lead the comma should be a period, or the upper case C in Caught should be lower case: It began when the ship broke loose from its anchorage in McMurdo Sound in May 1915, during a gale, Caught in heavy pack ice and unable to manoeuvre...
  • I would link wireless in Efforts to make wireless contact with Cape Evans and, later, with stations in New Zealand and Australia
  • Ultra-picky, but refs are generally in numerical order, so fix things like Hooke attempted to raise the radio station at McQuarie Island, more than 1,300 nautical miles (2,400 km) away, again without success.[28][26]
  • Give both English and metric units, so fix things like On 10 August Stenhouse estimated that they were 45 miles north-east of the Cape... (not sure if this is nautical or statute miles)
  • Also Stenhouse estimated that they had travelled over 700 miles from Cape Evans and the timber seams opened and were admitting up to three or four feet of water daily
  • I find no problems with the tone or the language (per some of the comments above).

Will look at this again later - this was just comments from my initial read through. Hope this helps. Yours, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 21:28, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A bit more

  • The photos of Shackleton and Mackintosh are set to a pixel width. Per WP:MOS#Images, images should be set to thumb width to allow reader preferences to take over. For portrait format images, "upright" can be used to make the image narrower.
  • In the image caption The Aurora in New Zealand, after the drift is that the damaged stern pictured? If so, should the caption mention this?

Not much else that I saw, well done Ruhrfisch ><>°° 02:59, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: This is another fine article about polar explorations. Here is a short list of tiny nitpicks.

Background

  • "A second party under Aeneas Mackintosh was to be taken by Aurora to the Ross Sea, tasked with laying supply depots along the expected route of Shackleton's march, a mission which Shackleton had not anticipated would present Mackintosh's party with any great difficulties." - Missing word? Perhaps "...and tasked with laying supply depots... ".

Winter anchorage

  • "No ship had previously wintered in the exposed northern section of the Sound, and the wisdom of doing this was questioned, in their private journals, by the experienced seamen Ernest Joyce and James Paton." - Perhaps a bit more smooth would be: "No ship had previously wintered in the exposed northern section of the Sound, and the wisdom of doing this was questioned by the experienced seamen Ernest Joyce and James Paton in their private journals."
  • "Stenhouse first attempted to anchor the ship on the north side of Glacier Tongue itself." - Here "Glacier Tongue" appears without the article "the"; in other places in this section and in the accompanying image caption it is referred to as "the Glacier Tongue". I think plain "Glacier Tongue" is better. Should all instances be changed to this form?

Southern Ocean phase

  • "On 25 August Hooke began picking up occasional radio signals being exchanged between Macquarie Island and New Zealand.[41][39] By the end of August open leads were beginning to appear, and sometimes it was possible to discern a sea-swell under the ship.[41][38]" - Here are a couple more of those non-ascending citation numbers noted by Ruhrfisch.

Release

It doesn't seem to be. Finetooth (talk) 02:03, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't mean to suggest that the "three or four feet" should be replaced with the metre. What I had in mind was something like this: "... the timber seams opened and were admitting three or four feet (around a metre) of water daily... ".
  • "However, on 31 March, as Aurora neared New Zealand in stormy weather, in danger of being driven on the rocks, Stenhouse finally requested help" - To avoid the impression that Stenhouse was in danger of being driven on the rocks, perhaps this would be slightly better: "However, on 31 March, as Aurora, in danger of being driven on the rocks, neared New Zealand in stormy weather, Stenhouse finally requested help." That's not elegant either, but I'm not coming up with something better.
Yes, that's good. Finetooth (talk) 02:03, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Aftermath

Sources

External links

  • I'm not used to seeing the access date for these. It might be a good idea, but I thought I'd ask.

Images

Sources

I hope these few suggestions are helpful. Finetooth (talk) 04:08, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re images. I made a mistake in attributing Image:Aeneas Mackintosh 1914group.jpg to the Project Gutenberg Ross Sea party photograph. In fact it comes from a different version of the Ross Sea group photo, but this is not exactly the same as the PD version in Gutenberg. I got my sources muddled at some stage. I have replaced the Mackintosh photograph with a version definitely from Gutenberg, and have done the same with Image:Stenhouse.jpg. The new photos are definitely PD, even if slightly less clear. Brianboulton (talk) 20:28, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The replacement for the Mackintosh photo, Image:Mack crop 3.jpg returns an error message when I click on the link to Gutenberg. Ditto for Image:Stenhouse crop 2.jpg. Finetooth (talk) 02:03, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand this – both links work fine for me. Browser problem? (I'm using Mozilla Firefox) Brianboulton (talk) 07:46, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(Later) Yes, the link to the picture works for Mozilla Firefox but not Internet Explorer. I have changed the Gutenberg link to the index page of Shackleton's book, from which the Ross Sea Party image can be accessed by a click. That seems to work for both browsers. Brianboulton (talk) 10:19, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I was using Firefox last night and this morning. I don't know why I had trouble last night, but all seems to be well today. Finetooth (talk) 14:18, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment to find refs out of order, I search for the characters ][ in my web browser. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 10:25, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)

  • You said you wanted to know what to work on before taking to FAC, so I looked at the sourcing and referencing with that in mind. I reviewed the article's sources as I would at FAC. The sourcing looks good.
Hope this helps. Please note that I don't watchlist Peer Reviews I've done. If you have a question about something, you'll have to drop a note on my talk page to get my attention. (My watchlist is already WAY too long, adding peer reviews would make things much worse.) 14:01, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
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